I Ain't Tellin' You a Secret, I Ain't Tellin' You No Lie -- Dinosaur Jr

I often collect music in huge groupings, often managing to catch names and groups that I've seen, read, or had recommended all at once, then find myself having difficulty keeping enough track to explicitly explore any that do not immediately have some effect on me. This is the primary reason I set up a poll on the right side of the page to help me pare down my listening and focus it a bit. It was mostly successful, though the runaway nature of my post about The Church (after both the Church's official Facebook and Steve Kilbey himself--calling it "worth reading" [!]--shared it through Facebook, it has had nearly 500 views, which is about...33x the usual views I have) caught me in an interesting problem, as former leaders, 70's pop-glam-stomp-rockers Slade were suddenly over-taken by alternative guitar-driven power trio Dinosaur Jr. Of course, the Big Star official page had also given me another couple hits, so maybe it was them? I can't be sure, of course, though I only wonder out of curiosity. I'd believe either of them.

Anyway, I'd been learning what I knew of Slade's Slayed? and Nobody's Fools when all this happened and I had to shift gears. Luckily, the alternating leads--in the poll, not guitar leads--meant I'd already been dropping in little tastes of Dinosaur Jr the whole time, but it seemed Slade were in the lead for sure and now I was just all goofed up.

However, as agreed, I'm going to write about the final winner: Dinosaur Jr. The name, like many, passed my eyes many times over the years--mentions as opening act or headliner for whom another band opened, an influence, a love, an example, but never enough to give me even a hint of what they sounded like. When I saw the cover art for the last Dinosaur Jr album, Farm from 2009, as well as lead guitarist and overall lead vocalist J. Mascis, 2011's Several Shades of Why, I got the impression of laidback, pothead, jam band type stuff. Of course, this is likely hysterical to anyone who knows the band or Mascis--at least, parts of it--or may reflect elements of the band or his solo work (or side projects) I'm unfamiliar with and be amusingly accurate, but having heard Dinosaur Jr for myself, well, I was ridiculously incorrect. Mind you, as a young child I confused U2 and REM (for which I was thoroughly admonished and mocked--though I later discovered they were commonly grouped together in some ways, at least in the 80s, even if not commonly confused, and felt a bit vindicated) and have trouble with confusing various indie bands I only know by name, often via strange trains of thought such as: Silversun Pickups -> Silver Apples -> Apples in Stereo, meaning I could conflate all three and be utterly lost.

Recommendations: I Hate You, Rob Crow; Karate by Kennedy; Glances at Björk and Unexpected Pumpkins Riffing

I'm still settling on format here, so bear with me. There's something a bit stilted about my usual approach--take a band, write something, that makes it more of an "event" to sit down and write it, which may not be the most appropriate approach to take to something like a blog. I'm still working this out, as its only been about a month, after all. I'll still take that approach toward whatever band ends up tops in my little poll (and possibly or even probably the rest of them there, eventually), but for now this less formal recollection seems it may be appropriate.

I've actually got a handful of recommended listens hanging around, which I normally just let pass by. Well, not exactly true, I've always listened to the recommendations people have given me. That is, the recommendations themselves. I'm often feeling so at a loss with the artists I've taken up on my own that taking time from "getting to know" Depeche Mode or Joy Division or New Order or The Church or Robyn Hitchcock seems wrong and makes me feel "behind," so the name ends up filed away for future reference.

Sometimes, of course, this leaves me in a place like yesterday, where, wandering around, I find Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime, and can't figure out why the name is imprinted in my brain so strongly. As I'm at CD Alley, I go to ask who's working if they can tell me something. Luckily, it's Alison (I know her name now, as I decided to ask for the purposes of writing here!) and this is--or was, anyway--her area. She's always been enthusiastic about the post punk and post hardcore bands I ask about, which has been terribly helpful. Drive Like Jehu, she says, well, Yank Crime was one of her all time top albums once upon a time, and yes, it makes sense for me to associate them mentally with Jawbox. It's easy when my source of information is conveniently placed at the time one of these things comes back up, and, once in a great while, someone might (possibly) get a text from me while I'm out, asking for recollections on why I'd know a band's name. Usually Brian suffers this, alongside requests to do bits of research on bands we are both ignorant of. Bless his heart. He's like my portable internet, since I don't have a smartphone. Lots more personal, too--and able to summarize or collate data helpfully!